Utility-Scale Solar Generation Is 31 Times Higher Today Than a Decade Ago

America’s utility-scale solar continues to hit cost and generation records and is actually 31 times higher today than it was ten years ago, according to an article published in The Energy Collective. Note: EIA defines utility-scale solar as any project over 1 megawatt; GTM defines it as any project on the utility side of the meter.)

In the second half of 2014, utilities all around the country signed an astounding number of contracts for utility-scale PV projects — in large part because the technology had become so inexpensive over time.

There are now more than 7 gigawatts of PV projects slated for completion around the country next year, the article explains. In June, Austin Energy revealed that the average bid from developers in the second round of a 600-megawatt procurement were averaging below 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

And in March 2015, California became the first state to generate 5 percent of its electricity from utility-scale solar power plants.

Utility-scale solar now accounts for just over a half percent of U.S. electricity production. If you incorporate the 700,000 distributed projects around the country — which make up 45% of U.S. installed capacity — and solar generation is over 1 percent of production.